A poll on pronunciation

[pne]

In cases where you answer "something else", feel free to leave a comment explaining your pronunciation.

[Poll #245210]

Comments

Note on my 'other'

[jordik.livejournal.com]

I pronounce "sue" (to bring a lawsuit against) as 'sew'.

sew

[pne.livejournal.com]

You pronounce it like the verb to do with needles and threads? That is, like "so"?

Re: sew

[jordik.livejournal.com]

No, it rhymes with 'dew' (as in dewdrops), or 'Jew'.

sue

[pne.livejournal.com]

So, like "syoo"? Or like "soo"?

That is, "sue" has the vowel sound "ooh" as in "dew" and "Jew", but does it have a "y" in the pronunciation?

For example, I pronounce "dew" and "due" like "dyoo", but many pronounce it like "doo" (the same as the word "do" - leading to misspellings such as "do to the fact that" which couldn't happen in my accent).

Re: sue

[jordik.livejournal.com]

Hmm… I don't detect a 'y' sound in there, the 'ew' sound may include it but then after the vowel. May be I misinterpret it, in any case the name 'Sue' I pronounce 'Soo', but 'to sue' sounds more like 'Soow' than 'Syoo' (which is the sound in 'Shoe', right? Or the 'shyoo' from 'Bayou'?)

[angelsk.livejournal.com]

Susan: "soo-zan"

[kake]

Oh yes; and according to my GP, I've caught a bit of a Birmingham accent from my boyfriend.

GP

[pne.livejournal.com]

GP = general practitioner?

Re: GP

[kake]

Yes. We were talking about something and she said "So where do your parents live - Birmingham?"

Re:

[alsatia.livejournal.com]

Oooh, myrrh! That's great, I was trying to think how to make that sound. :D

So the ones that I either didn't answer or pronounced differently than the options:

fissile -- left this blank because I've never used the word in my life
aluminum -- uh-loo-mih-num. no emphasis on any syllable
Susan -- SOO-zihn
Murray -- MYRRH-ee

Re:

[bride.livejournal.com]

aluminum -- uh-loo-mih-num. no emphasis on any syllable

I find it fascinating that you think there's no emphasis anywhere...

Re:

[asciident]

My other was Murray, which I pronounce the way Dana described. :)

pronunciation notes

[ursamajor]

--i tried to avoid saying "route" until i was in college and lived by route 9 and learned to say root, but i first saw the word when i was reading beverly cleary books in elementary school and henry huggins had a paper route. i did this with a lot of words, actually ... read them in books long before i ever heard people using them in conversation.

--i started learning french when i was four, so i thought niche was supposed to be pronounced "neesh." didn't see it in english until years later ... niche is one of those words i'm never sure how i'll say it until it comes out of my mouth.

--never used fissile before, but it just feels more properly enunciated to say "fiss-sighle." it might be a contextual thing, though, like when i pronounce mobile "mo-bull" sometimes and "mo-bighle" other times.

--Murray is "murry." like "hurry" and "jury."

--"cot" and "caught" are very slightly differently pronounced for me; "caught" lasts a little longer, has a little more emphasis.

--most people just hem and haw and say, "well, um, you just SOUND californian!" only one person has been able to explain what a "california accent" consists of to me - "you sound like you're in the movies ... except you talk a hell of a lot faster." *ggl*

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I pronounce "route" as both "root" and "rowt" -- I haven't been able to discern any pattern recently, though it used to be that "rowt" was used as the name of a road (e.g. "Route 1"), and "root" as a way to get somewhere. "Root" is more common for me, though.

One more...

[bride.livejournal.com]

"schedule" -- I say "skejool", do you say "shejool"?

schedule

[pne.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do. (Well, either "shejool" or "shedyool", depending on how clearly I'm enunciating.)

Though the person who's conducting English classes at work at the moment (and who is English herself) says "skejool".

Re: schedule

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I say "skejool."

Re: schedule

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

my pronounciation would be something along the lines of skhedzhool / skedjool - not too hot on writing things phonetically, but I know how I say it and it's not like any of the above examples read to me!:p

[asciident]

I explained Murray above, but re: route:

I say "root" when it's by itself or naming a specific road (Route (Root) 66), but "rowt" like a "paper route" or "which route did you take?"

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

dynasty = DINN-ah-stee
murray rhymes with curry (hard k, short u, long r, short y - like in hymn / him)

Re:

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

I fail to understand how "Mary", "marry", and "merry" can all be pronounced the same. I've never met anyone that does so. Very odd. I wasn't sure what you meant by the last question (The vowel sounds in "father" and "bother" are) - a and o are different, but the two e sounds are the same.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I fail to understand how "Mary", "marry", and "merry" can all be pronounced the same.

*nods* It's what I thought as well upon learning that many merge all three sounds into one. (Similarly with cot/caught and father/bother -- the last one especially seems fairly dissimilar.)

I wasn't sure what you meant by the last question (The vowel sounds in "father" and "bother" are)

I meant the vowel in the first syllable.

Sorry for being unclear.

Re:

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

> I meant the vowel in the first syllable.

How can father sound like bother? That's crazier than the previous one! *baffled*

Re:

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one who does father/bother the same and mary/merry/marry the same/

They can.

Trust me.

(...I can hear the difference when someone else talks, and-- for the Mary/merry/marry one, at least-- can force myself to pronounce them differently, but in my normal speech, they just merge.)

One thing is that in some dialects (both age-related and location-related), there's a vowel that doesn't really exist in most contexts. I'm not sure which of the father/bother pair it is, but there's a cot/caught pair that I pronounce the same, and... I think it's that the vowel in caught is the higher one (that in IPA looks like a backwards c). But in my dialect, that vowel's mostly been merged into the vowel of cot. And the father/bother thing is the same vowel set, I think.

It's a matter of the dialect you're used to, and the dialects you've been exposed to. For me, the things you find crazy are perfectly /normal/. *grin*

Re:

[whimemsz.livejournal.com]

How can they be pronounced differently? ;)

I pronounce merry, marry, and Mary all as ['mej.r\ij]. Cot and caught are both [k_hat], and father is ['faD.r\=] and bother is ['baD.r\=].

EDIT

[whimemsz.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Murray is ['mr\=.ij].

Re:

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I pronounce them all the same -- phonetically [meri:] with the 'e' colored by the 'r'.

And yep, it's the vowel sounds represented by the 'a' in "father" and the 'o' in "bother"...

[cadenzamuse.livejournal.com]

I live in the great southlands, so everything sounds the same--no difference between "pin" and "pen," and both are pronounced like the former.

However, I can detect a *slight* difference between "Mary"/"marry" and "merry." The last one leans just slightly more toward the "e" sound.

"Father" and "bother." Shoot, I used to know the word for the difference between those, in phonetic-speak. But my friend the linguistics major has my GHP phonetics notes, so I couldn't tell you right now, other than they should mostly sound the same, but "father" leans toward the nasally aaaaah sound you make at the doctor (a as in apple, not awkward), and bother leans toward the a of awkward. But not much.

pin vs pen

[pne.livejournal.com]

no difference between "pin" and "pen," and both are pronounced like the former.

Ah! I had heard of this merger, but it had slipped my mind when I made the poll. (I think most people with whom I've spoken in the past don't have it.)

Do you use phrases such as "ink pin" and "safety pin" to differentiate between them? Always, or only when they could be confused?

(Reminds me a bit of Chinese, which used to have one-syllable words but which today, in the spoken language, has very many two-syllable words because of sound mergers, so they added "explanatory" words to differentiate.)

Re: pin vs pen

[cadenzamuse.livejournal.com]

Do you use phrases such as "ink pin" and "safety pin" to differentiate between them? Always, or only when they could be confused?

I think we mostly tack phrases onto the sharp-implement-type pin. "Safety pin," "tie pin," "straight pin," etc. Pen-pronounced-pin generally doesn't have an attribute unless it could be confused with pin-pronounced-pin.

And clarification can also be done "Coca-cola style." (Here, every carbonated soft drink is called a Coke, so if someone asks, "Do you want a Coke?", the response is "Yes; I'd like a sprite/rootbeer/orange soda.") For instance: "Can you pass me that pin?" "Ballpoint or safety?"

And it's nice to know we southerners are in good company with sound mergers, at least.

[joyitude.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify, I pronounce 'niche' as 'nish'.

niche

[pne.livejournal.com]

rhymes with "wish"?

Re: niche

[joyitude.livejournal.com]

-nods-

[pthalo]

SOO-zin, MAY-ree, MAA-ree, muh-REE, MER-ree

[volantwish]

for me, 'route' rhymes with 'trout' when i'm talking about the way i'm going to drive or a paper route. it's like 'root' when i'm talking about a specific road (ie. 'route 66')